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While there are disintegrating views on its upgrade for Bitcoin miners, the proposal to use SegWit – or Segregated Witnesses – on Litecoin first and then make an evaluation of its feasibility on Bitcoin has been welcomed by major industry insiders. Aside that, it is also being seen as beneficial to the Litecoin market as an alternative to Bitcoin in major markets.
The Litecoin SegWit soft fork will start signalling on block number 1145088 in a couple of hours. The idea is that since Bitcoin miners remain deadlocked, Litecoin’s deployment of SegWit could make its value rise due to utility and this may probably make miners reconsider their positions.

Bitcoin and SegWit
If SegWit activates on Litecoin and it value rises considerably, Bitcoin miners are likely to be tempted to enable SegWit so as not to see a part of their market share go to Litecoin as it was the case with Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.
Though it looks dicey, there have been some level of support for SegWit among Bitcoin miners thus far. Some miners, including Japan’s largest Bitcoin exchange, Coincheck, welcome SegWit’s activation. Coincheck’s Business Development Lead, Kagayaki (Kaga) Kawabata, states to 8btc News in an email:
“We agree on both proposal but are neutral on the position for SegWit and Bitcoin scalability issue. As an exchange and bitcoin payment provider, we welcome activation of Segwit. It brings more transaction throughputs, fixes malleability, makes wallets more secure and it enables Lightning, which will enable quick and low-cost Bitcoin transaction. However, until an off-chain transaction such as Lightning is established it is inconvenient for a Bitcoin user when a remittance transaction is crowded. In the short-term, when we think about Bitcoin’s usability, the increase in Bitcoin size is important. We are monitoring activation preparing our exchange and payment service ready for both.”

Litecoin and SegWit
Litecoin is expected to be a great test for SegWit particularly to bring more miners on board.
F2Pool, which currently controls around 43% of the Litecoin network hashrate, is planning to upgrade to SegWit. This will add to Batpool and Litecoinpool.org – which control 11.6% and 5.8% respectively and are already signaling for SegWit – to have over 60% of the network’s hashrate share.
Yet, unlike Bitcoin which aims for 95%, Litecoin requires 75% of the network’s hashrate to upgrade for SegWit to be activated. However, it is not clear whether that threshold would be reached as some miners already appear to be against it.
If it does happen, one of the suggested possible outcomes going forward is that Litecoin might become the payment chain and Bitcoin the digital gold chain. How will this benefit the market especially in China?

China, Litecoin and SegWit
In a post which outlines his vision for SegWit and Lightning Networks on Litecoin and Bitcoin, the creator of Litecoin, Charles Lee, who has been pushing for SegWit activation recently despite Litecoin does not have a block size problem, highlights how the second most-traded digital currency in Chinese yuan would benefit from an upgrade to SegWit.
Lee believes Litecoin and Bitcoin will work together to solve the world’s transaction needs in the future. This will be possible as the implementation of Lightning will improve but still not able to make Bitcoin service every person in the world. Rather, LN nodes will charge a fee for transactions going through it which will be relative to the Bitcoin network fee thus making Bitcoin transactions be more expensive than Litecoin’s.
The double fees will create the needed opportunity for transactions to be channeled through Litecoin and back to Bitcoin to get the cheapest rate as Lightning will make it possible for the two networks to be interoperable.
With Litecoin not being considered an altcoin in China but rather classified just as Bitcoin, Lee’s view makes sense for the currency which is popular among exchanges dealing with CNY as they have been seeing more trading volume in Litecoin than Ethereum – though in USD, Bitcoin and Ethereum remain the leaders with Litecoin cling onto the third spot.
Lee illustrates that the Lightning Network will build bridges between a highway full of cars (Bitcoin) and an empty highway (Litecoin). He also cites another benefit with the conduct of atomic cross-chain transactions through Lightning which enable two users to trade Bitcoin and Litecoin instantaneously without risk. This is really good for users who only have Litecoin but would like to transact with merchants that only accept Bitcoin.
Whether this cheaper and easier Litecoin option will win the market will be known once the two networks are connected.

Olusegun Ogundeji is an author and journalist from Africa. He writes mainly on technology-related issues including Bitcoin/Blockchain - usually from an end user perspective.

COMMENTS(25)

2 years agohl5460

While there are disintegrating views on its upgrade for Bitcoin miners, the proposal to use SegWit  or Segregated Witnesses  on Litecoin first and then make an evaluation of its feasibility on Bitcoin has been welcomed by major industry insiders. Aside that, it is also being seen as beneficial to the Litecoin market as an alternative to Bitcoin in major markets. The Litecoin SegWit soft fork will start signalling on block number 1145088 in a couple of hours. The idea is that since Bitcoin miners remain deadlocked, Litecoins deployment of SegWit could make its value rise due to utility and this may probably make miners reconsider their positions.http://news.8btc.com/litecoin-banking-on-segwit-activation-to-realize-vision-as-bitcoins-alternative

F2Pool currently controls around 43% of the Litecoin network hashrate and they stated that they are planning to upgrade to SegWit. Since Segregated Witness for LTC requires only 75% of the network hashrate to be activated it seems very likely this is going to happen. And then we have to wait and see what it will be of LTC

it’ll be interesting to see what happens but it’s only ever gonna be purely experimental unless ltc gains some real use, which it deserves. a lightning network on a network which is already virtually unused feels a little pointless.

Quote from: TraderTimm on February 04, 2017, 05:44:30 PM
Those that can’t innovate — copy.Outside of “washing” coins, litecoin doesn’t have a compelling use-case, and its price reflects that.
I’m totally with you on this but can we deny that, for the time being, it would be better for everyday spending to have the chance of using Litecoin with faster confirmations? I’m starting to see it this way: LTC for everyday use, BTC long term wealth management.

I like the idea of Litecoin being used as testing ground for SegWit but we don’t know if litecoin’s users will accept this evolution.SegWit is not really that needed for Litecoin anyway. Unlike Bitcoin, LTC has no problems with confirmation times and high transaction fees.Segregated Witness Benefits https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/01/26/segwit-benefits/

Quote from: Hazir on February 05, 2017, 05:49:30 PM
I like the idea of Litecoin being used as testing ground for SegWit but we don’t know if litecoin’s users will accept this evolution.SegWit is not really that needed for Litecoin anyway. Unlike Bitcoin, LTC has no problems with confirmation times and high transaction fees.Segregated Witness Benefits https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/01/26/segwit-benefits/

Litecoin indeed doesn’t need segwit, but if just as happened with Bitcoin it begins to boom when it comes to mining, then even Litecoin will see its block times being far less frequent than is the case right now. Litecoin on its own is pretty much useless beside for speculation purposes. From that point I can understand that they want to put segwit to test via Litecoin. But then again, testing segwit is step one, getting enough support to activate segwit for Bitcoin, is a whole different level of achieving.

Quote from: Hazir on February 05, 2017, 05:49:30 PM
I like the idea of Litecoin being used as testing ground for SegWit but we don’t know if litecoin’s users will accept this evolution.SegWit is not really that needed for Litecoin anyway. Unlike Bitcoin, LTC has no problems with confirmation times and high transaction fees.Segregated Witness Benefits https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/01/26/segwit-benefits/

Litecoin indeed doesn’t need segwit, but if just as happened with Bitcoin it begins to boom when it comes to mining, then even Litecoin will see its block times being far less frequent than is the case right now. Litecoin on its own is pretty much useless beside for speculation purposes. From that point I can understand that they want to put segwit to test via Litecoin. But then again, testing segwit is step one, getting enough support to activate segwit for Bitcoin, is a whole different level of achieving.

Hmmmm, maybe a better strategy would be to do the testing on Bitcoin itself?Maybe there should be, I dunno, maybe a specific Bitcoin Testnet, and the Segwit fork should be rolled out and tested on that for at least a year?

Quote from: hl5460 on February 06, 2017, 04:53:33 AM
Many people believe that LTC is a test field for bitcoin.

It must be like that, because there is no way that Litecoin can actually benefit from a better update when there is barely any real network usage. At first I was a bit skeptic, but it may turn out to be a more than great testing opportunity if there is enough support among pools to reach consensus. Unlike the amateurish BU software, I don’t really expect much to go wrong with SegWit. Only thing that is working against us are the pools that play hard to get when it comes to giving SegWit a fair chance.

As a “Segwit for BTC” supporter but also a coin-agnostic cryptocurrency user, I am interested in tracking the adoption of this improvement in all cryptocurrencies. I think all of them can benefit from it, and be it only for the purpose to fix transaction malleability. And indeed I think it’s more probable that BTC could adopt Segwit if a larger altcoin like LTC already adopted it and there wasn’t any trouble with the soft fork.People interested in “the whole picture of Segwit in cryptocurrencies” can go to my thread about altcoins and Segwit adoption. There is already an altcoin that adopted it (Groestlcoin / GRS) and the soft fork seemed to have happened flawlessly – although obviously it’s a very small cryptocurrency and its network should not be too complex, so for BTC it maybe is more of a challenge. But it can be a first precedent for LTC and then also BTC adoption.Still Segwit support among Litecoin miners seems to be low (2,8 % at this moment – should be around 4-5% at the end of the first period), but I think it’s too early to draw conclusions – F2Pool and other large players may be just working on it.

Quote from: d5000 on February 06, 2017, 03:54:58 PM
As a “Segwit for BTC” supporter but also a coin-agnostic cryptocurrency user, I am interested in tracking the adoption of this improvement in all cryptocurrencies. I think all of them can benefit from it, and be it only for the purpose to fix transaction malleability. And indeed I think it’s more probable that BTC could adopt Segwit if a larger altcoin like LTC already adopted it and there wasn’t any trouble with the soft fork.People interested in “the whole picture of Segwit in cryptocurrencies” can go to my thread about altcoins and Segwit adoption. There is already an altcoin that adopted it (Groestlcoin / GRS) and the soft fork seemed to have happened flawlessly – although obviously it’s a very small cryptocurrency and its network should not be too complex, so for BTC it maybe is more of a challenge. But it can be a first precedent for LTC and then also BTC adoption.Still Segwit support among Litecoin miners seems to be low (2,8 % at this moment – should be around 4-5% at the end of the first period), but I think it’s too early to draw conclusions – F2Pool and other large players may be just working on it.

Nice summary, Groestlcoin is the only activated one? Any user feedback?

Quote from: hl5460 on February 07, 2017, 01:44:43 AM
Groestlcoin is the only activated one?

As far as I know, yes. The next altcoin (apart of LTC) that is about to start the signalling phase seems to be Vertcoin – just yesterday they have published the version which enables SegWit, although they describe it still as a “pre-release”. Vertcoin-SegWit.Quote
Any user feedback?

In the GRS thread they wrote that all worked without flaws – no other particular user reactions. The Groestlcoin forum has very low activity and Segwit is not even mentioned :-/

Quote from: TraderTimm on February 05, 2017, 05:15:46 PM
Sidechains are more suited to micro-transactions. It will take time, but I think that will be the direction to take.

But aren’t sidechains proven impossible to secure? I have no idea honestly. I have only read about it while doing my reading about Bitcoin. Another thing I’d like to know is considered Lightning a sidechain?

Quote from: TraderTimm on February 05, 2017, 05:15:46 PM
Sidechains are more suited to micro-transactions. It will take time, but I think that will be the direction to take.

But aren’t sidechains proven impossible to secure? I have no idea honestly. I have only read about it while doing my reading about Bitcoin. Another thing I’d like to know is considered Lightning a sidechain?

My understanding is sidechains are secured via the parent blockchain hashing power. Which is why it makes sense. Then the side-chain can have different ratios of value to the main chain, and in effect “fill the gap” for lower-end purchases.

Quote from: TraderTimm on February 05, 2017, 05:15:46 PM
Sidechains are more suited to micro-transactions. It will take time, but I think that will be the direction to take.

But aren’t sidechains proven impossible to secure? I have no idea honestly. I have only read about it while doing my reading about Bitcoin. Another thing I’d like to know is considered Lightning a sidechain?

My understanding is sidechains are secured via the parent blockchain hashing power. Which is why it makes sense. Then the side-chain can have different ratios of value to the main chain, and in effect “fill the gap” for lower-end purchases.

As it is not atomic on chain, every interface invents new risks. Just very simple to understand.

Quote from: hl5460 on February 07, 2017, 01:44:43 AM
Groestlcoin is the only activated one?

As far as I know, yes. The next altcoin (apart of LTC) that is about to start the signalling phase seems to be Vertcoin – just yesterday they have published the version which enables SegWit, although they describe it still as a “pre-release”. Vertcoin-SegWit.Quote
Any user feedback?

In the GRS thread they wrote that all worked without flaws – no other particular user reactions. The Groestlcoin forum has very low activity and Segwit is not even mentioned :-/

Any actual transaction via segwit, I heard that the address format is different.